Sick Day in Sioux Falls
by fleurofthecourt
Summary: Dean thinks he must have skipped past feverish and gone right on to delirious - there's really no other explanation for why he's tucked into Jody's guest bed with Cas drooling on the sleeve of his nightshirt. [Cas/Dean].


A/N: Set in some imaginary future where Cas and Dean are dating and hunting together, and Sam has gone back to law school.

* * *

Dean thinks he must have skipped past feverish and gone right on to delirious - there's really no other explanation for why he's tucked into Jody's guest bed with Cas drooling on the sleeve of his nightshirt.

Well, the other, longer explanation is that he and Cas had both been feeling a little under the weather the whole time they'd been investigating an odd death in Sioux City - a little more fatigued than their drive from Springfield warranted, a little more sore than their last hunt with a vampire nest warranted - and, when they stopped in the city morgue, before they even got to the body, Cas had more or less passed out on the cold tile. So, after sitting Cas down in the sheriff's office with a glass of water, getting some Tylenol in him, and watching his tired, glazed over expression with more than a little concern, Dean decided that Cas, at least, didn't need to be involved in this. Not if he couldn't stand up without falling down.

He tells Cas as much before making a quick stop at their motel and heading for Jody's. Because he thinks it would be incredibly foolish to risk having a helpless, freshly human and clearly sick shadow when he knows someone who lives less than two hours away that can look after him.

What Dean, in his clearly fever addled state, doesn't account for, is the possibility of Jody taking one look at the pair of them and marching them into her guest room. Together.

Cas, listless as he is, doesn't even bother to fight. He just toes his shoes off, gives Dean a halfhearted _well, maybe we should listen to this kind woman _shrug, and flops sideways onto the bed.

"You're supposed to be on my side," Dean mutters as he drags Cas to the pillows.

"I am on your side. You're sick too. You should sleep," Cas murmurs without opening his eyes as Dean pulls him under the covers.

He's nearly asleep when Jody comes back.

"Dean, when I told you you should stop by and introduce me to this Castiel I've been hearing so much about, this isn't what I meant," Jody says as she hands him her thermometer. "Under your tongue. Not a word until it beeps. I can't believe you were hunting like this. You both look like hell."

The thermometer beeps, and, from Jody's frown, Dean figures it's not a perfect 98.6.

"101.7," Jody shakes her head. "Guess I've got company for a couple days. Good. I need it. The house has been too quiet since Alex left for school."

"Can't just let a ghost go because I've got a cold, Jody. You get that, don't you?" His head spins as he sits up, and he feels like an idiot even before Jody pushes him back into the pillows and side-eyes him.

"I think I might know someone who can take care of it. Someone who was already planning on taking care of it." Jody says meaningfully. "You do know I read the news around here and can handle myself, right? Because I wonder sometimes."

Dean ducks his head sheepishly. He has a bad habit of underestimating certain people, Jody among them.

"Right."

"Maybe your boyfriend will be up for a real introduction when I get back," Jody says before making Dean cough up his keys. "And I know you don't like twiddling your thumbs, but don't make me tell you not to sneak out. You're not my teenage daughter."

Dean huffs lightly. "I'll be here. But care if I use your kitchen?"

Jody sighs. "Well, if you aren't going to sleep, I guess not ...but anyone ever tell you you should take care of you?"

"Nah, I got this one," Dean says as he ruffles Cas' hair. "Don't think he's been sick as a human before."

"Dean, I nearly died when my grace burned up. I believe I can handle a human illness," Cas offers drowsily as he rolls onto his other side. "Don't not sleep on my account."

"You're still supposed to be on my side," Dean says.

"I am still on your side. You told me before that I needed to sit down before I fell down; I assume you wish to take your own advice," Cas says as he props himself up on Dean's shoulder. "If you're going to to cook against it, I will join you."

"I like him," Jody says, smirking from the doorframe.

"Sheriff Mills," Cas says. "Dean's told me a lot about you."

"All good things, I hope," Jody says.

"The story of how you met could have used less zombies and less tragedy. I'm sure you would agree. But despite your troubled past, you sound to be a caring and remarkable woman," Cas says.

"Uh, thanks," Jody says.

"His people skills are a little better when he's not running a fever," Dean says apologetically, unsure how much damage control Cas' comment actually needs.

"They're not, really," Cas says. "But thank you, Dean."

Jody snorts before turning back for the door. "Just don't fall asleep over the stove, boys. I should be back in a couple hours."

"If you're not, I'm calling Sam out here," Dean says.

"If you need to send in the cavalry for me, call Donna," Jody says. "Hibbing's a lot closer than Stanford."

"Think you'd be chopped liver either way," Dean says. "Think I need my keys back. You don't call in a couple hours, I'm coming after you, fever or not."

"We're coming after you," Cas amends.

Jody mulls over that before handing Cas the keys. "I'm trusting you to watch out for the both of you. Don't make me regret it."

"I will strive not to," Cas says earnestly.

XXX

Much to Dean's chagrin, Cas takes keeping this promise to heart and refuses, when Jody hasn't contacted them an hour later, to give him the keys, insisting that she hasn't been gone anywhere near long enough for them to worry.

After arguing with him about it for ten minutes, Dean begrudgingly admits that Jody may not even be in Sioux City yet and instead starts poking at Cas' barely eaten bowl of soup with his spoon. "You gonna finish this?"

Cas shakes his head before folding his arms on the table and pressing his head into them. "I'm not very hungry."

"Yeah, but you need to eat," Dean says.

"As do you," Cas says before lifting his hand to wave at the bowl in front of Dean that has been touched hardly more than his own. "Do not take care of me and not yourself."

"What? I'm...I'm not," Dean says. "Made that soup for both of us."

"The soup? Yes," Cas says. He slowly raises his head back up before fixing Dean with a hard stare. "But you intended to deposit me here and finish the hunt alone."

"Yeah, well, been doing this a lot longer than you. Got to know your limits, man. And clearly you don't, since you, you know," Dean rolls his hand, "fainted."

Cas rolls his eyes at this, and Dean knows he's not going to like where this is going. "As I recall, you nearly fell asleep at the wheel on the way here. I think I'm not the only one that doesn't know his limits."

And, okay, maybe Cas hadn't slid over from the passenger seat and practically into Dean's lap just because he was overly tactile when sick. He may or may not have briefly taken the steering wheel.

"I'm fine," Dean mutters, unconvincingly, into his soup.

"Relatively speaking, I suppose that's true," Cas says. "We've been through much worse than whatever this illness is. I...I assume it's not fatal? You haven't seemed concerned."

Dean narrows his eyes. "Just a cold, Cas. Or the flu maybe. I don't frigging know."

"Should I check? Do we need medicine other than what Sheriff MIlls gave to us earlier?" Cas asks as he peers at the laptop in the next room.

Dean shakes his head. "You do research on this on that thing, you're going to end up thinking we're both dying. And story's the same either way. Try to sleep while you're coughing up your lungs, drink a lot, and let the damn thing run its course. It sucks."

"We...we have not been coughing...up our lungs?" Cas squints, looking slightly perturbed by this turn of phrase.

"That one wasn't covered in the pop culture phrase book, huh?" Dean chuckles.

"English idioms are not precisely pop culture," Cas sighs. "Besides... simply knowing a phrase doesn't always contextualize it. Until I can, I have no choice but to take it literally. In this case, I assume it's an extreme exaggeration."

"You tell me it's an 'extreme exaggeration' again in a couple days," Dean says with smirk right as his phone buzzes.

"Is that Sheriff Mills?" Cas asks.

"Yeah," Dean says as he blearily scrolls through Jody's update on how the case is going. Jody, like Dean, had been pretty sure there was a vengeful spirit lingering at the dead man's farm. It had seemed like it was going to be a milk run to Dean, and it sounds like Jody thinks the same. But he decides not to jinx the universe and keeps the thought to himself. "Looks like she's got a grave to dig up. Bones to burn."

"Tell her to be careful. And to wear gloves. I think there's a picture of gloves on the phone?" Cas says. "It's been very cold."

"You do know you don't have to add pictures to every text, right?" Dean asks as he does exactly what Cas asked him to anyway.

"But I like to," Cas says drowsily, looking like he's about to fall asleep in his soup. Which is about how Dean feels.

"Yeah, I know you do," Dean says. "And, okay. Dinner's over. Time for sick angels to go back to bed."

"Sick humans," Cas amends with a yawn. "May I recommend we watch Dr. Sexy? Sam showed me how to find it online. He said you liked it."

Dean feels like he ought to protest some part of what Cas just said. But it sounds like too amazing an idea.

And thus, when Jody returns a few hours later, with the bones successfully burned, it is to find Dean sound asleep on Cas' chest with Cas fighting to keep his eyes, which are glued to the laptop at his side, open. "I want to sleep, but I am determined to find out if this woman truly has an evil twin or ..."

"Well, I'm glad one of you is asleep. But afraid I'm cutting you off," Jody says as she closes the laptop. "You can find out in the morning. Get some sleep."

Jody lingers in the doorway for a moment, watching as Cas adjusts his position on the bed for both his and Dean's benefit before whispering, "You're good for him."

Cas shakes his head. "He is good for me."

XXX

Two days later, as Cas and Dean continue their marathon of Dr. Sexy between rounds of administering cough medicine and Tylenol to each other, Cas informs Dean that saying that one was 'coughing up a lung' may have been a vast understatement.

Dean laughs before wrapping his arm around Cas' back. "But we've been through worse, right?"

"Well, according to this website," Cas smirks as he looks up from an article on WebMD, "we're both likely dying."

"Guess that earns us another round of that mean macaroni Jody made for us," Dean says.

"We, uh...we should make her something, to thank her for letting us stay here like this," Cas says. "It is my understanding that is a ritual of hospitality."

"Well, you up for learning how to bake a pie?"

"If you are up for teaching," Cas smiles. "I imagine it's a sacred art to you."

"You bet your ass it is," Dean says as he starts tugging Cas towards the kitchen. "Come on."


End file.
